A Tangled Mercy

by Joy Jordan-Lake

  Another pause. The administrative assistant lowered her voice. “I tell you what. It’s not like I’m sending you to a private club or something. Dr. Sutpen’s been working on a project that will have him at the South Carolina Historical Society—it’s housed at our Addlestone Library up on Calhoun.” Her voice dropped here to a whisper. “And he likes mornings best.”

  Hanging up, Kate sighed and leaned again against the brick wall. She’d taken one more tiny step.

  Perched inside on his stool, Gabe glanced up toward the front window from a textbook splayed on the counter. He darted to the front door. “Kate!” Taking her by the wrist, he tugged her inside.

  “So tell me the truth, Gabe: Is it me you ran to welcome, or did you spot what I had in my hand?”

  She cracked open the box of Sea Island blackberry scones. “Could I interest my very first friend in this city in sharing the wealth?”

  Daniel set down his tongs. “Let me guess: the owner of Penina Moise found out you were new in town. Mordecai Greenberg pays a manager to keep him in line. Left to himself, he’d give away half the meals, then throw a party for the other half.”

  “Is that something that needs keeping in line?”

  “Only if you want to keep the doors of your café open.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Gabe reached for a scone.

  Kate paused to watch a mouth so small making crumbs of a bite so large. “I’ve got to go sequester myself in some archives, but these smelled too good not to share.” She turned to Gabe. “So that stomachache of yours is a little better, I guess? And your daddy doesn’t mind your having several of those?”

  Gabe shook his head. “Better, mm-hmm. And we don’t generally eat dinner till right about candlelighting.”

  “About when?”

  “It’s Gullah for dusk,” Daniel put in. He glanced up from the planks of cypress he was staining, then straightened to an exaggerated tour-guide pose, complete with hands miming holding the reins. “The term Gullah refers—”

  But Gabe stepped forward, small hands also holding invisible reins, posing for the memorized speech. He tucked his chin far back into his neck as he pitched his voice low. “Refers to the people, culture, and creole language created with the coming of West African folks brought against their will to the coast here in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds.”

  Laughing, his father tag-teamed with him to continue the speech. “While the majority of Gullah’s words might be English derived, its intonation, stress, sentence structure, and changes in the sounds of particular letters show its connection . . .”

  “With African languages such as Krio,” Gabe concluded triumphantly. He glanced at his father, who gave a thumbs-up.

  Kate applauded. “Candlelighting. Nice. I like that. I’ve read about the Gullah culture down here, of course.”

  The of course sounded pretentious, and the down here condescending, which she heard for herself—and saw in the upward twitch of Daniel’s mouth. “But that’s probably different, reading about it, I mean, than actually learning about it. In person. From experts.”

  Gabe beamed, and Daniel gave her a single nod. For all the hard edge to his eyes and square of his jaw, there was a softness in him and a warmth. The quiet burn of kindness deep down inside.

  From the dirt floor at the back, Daniel lifted a length of cypress trunk onto his counter, arms bulging with the strain. Watching, Gabe clenched one hand like calipers around his opposite arm, nearly as thin as one of the planks his father had just been staining. He squinted at his father’s upper arm. Then back at his own. And frowned.

  His father winked at him. “You keep pushing that currycomb in circles like I showed you all over our friend Beecher’s big ole haunches, and pretty soon there won’t be shirtsleeves enough in the Low Country to hold in the muscle of you.”

  Satisfied, Gabe turned to Kate. “Every day we’re up before dayclean, me and my daddy, so we can get Beecher all set together—days I’m not running. And see to the couple of folks keeping the shop when we’re out on the buggy.”

  “Up before dayclean,” Kate echoed.

  “Dayclean’s something my daddy says alltime.”

  “Alltime?” Kate pulled out the scrap of paper she’d used for her last sketch and jotted these down: Candlelighting. Dayclean. Alltime. Then she dropped the scrap beside the art-exhibit booklet she’d been inspecting at Penina Moise when Lila Rose Pinckney had made herself felt.

  Tentatively, not sure she’d earned the right to ask too many more questions, Kate held up the booklet. “At the risk of sounding like the kind of idiot who thinks all sculptors know all other sculptors around the world, could I ask you about something?”

  Warily, Daniel lifted his head from the cypress table legs he’d been sanding. Kate slid from her stool at the counter and brought the photograph of the four children in black marble closer.

  Immediately, Daniel’s face lit. And even Gabe skittered closer from his few feet away.

  “Mother E!” Gabe exclaimed.

  Kate shook her head. “Mother E?”

  “Where that sculpture is located—I’ll let Gabe explain about that.” Daniel took the brochure and ran a finger over the page as he scanned it. “Not a bad summation of the work. It was brand new at this time, in ’91.”

  “Exactly. I found it in some things of my mother’s. I’m guessing she went to the exhibit herself, since it would have been maybe a year after she finished college here but before she left to . . .” Kate stopped there. To what? Escape from a painful marriage? Hide from something here in this city? “Before she moved away from Charleston. The sculpture seems to commemorate the Vesey revolt?”

  “Right. The sculptor, Ronald Jones—he was born in the South but lives in New York, I believe—based his work on a stereoscopic photograph, a duplicate photo of the same thing that, when you view them at the same time, appears kind of three-dimensional, called South Carolina Cherubs by George Barnard. And Barnard was basing his on Raphael’s cherubs—”

  Kate’s hands shot up. “I knew it! Actually remembered something from an elective in college.”

  Daniel nodded. “From the painting The Sistine Madonna, only Barnard’s stereoscope depicts the cherubic innocence of African American children in Reconstruction South Carolina. All that to say, the sculpture here has a rich and complex history—”

  “I’ll say.”

  “And in their innocent gaze, the four black angelic children are meant to represent a kind of cloud of witnesses of the Denmark Vesey revolt that was planned in this city.”

  “Kate here,” Gabe piped up, “knows all about that. Since her work is in hangings.”

  Kate exchanged looks with Daniel and did not contradict the child. “This is all exactly what I needed to know. But where is Mother E?” She addressed this to Gabe. “The booklet says it was installed at a chur—”

  Gabe puffed out his chest. “Mother E’s what I call her. Mother Emanuel to everyone else.”

  Kate’s brow puckered, then relaxed. She skimmed her booklet. “Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Installed in some sort of entryway.” She glanced up. “Really? So just anybody could go see it, then?”

  Daniel blew sawdust from the table legs. “Just anybody’d be welcome.” He stepped to a homemade kiln, fireproof insulation leaking out one edge of its door. “And if you want to understand the history of Charleston, you’ll want to get by Emanuel soon.”

  Kate jotted the name in her notebook. Put a star by it. And then, because Gabe was watching, circled the star. The child nodded in approval.

  “Son, it’s time we took that break of ours,” Daniel said to Gabe. “Just after this next step for the new sculpture.”

  Letting the smoke escape up the chimney, he doused the can with water, then used the long wooden tongs to lift a ceramic disc a good foot across, a hole in its middle, from the water. Copper gleamed in a background of teal and brown. “Kate . . . Drayton,” he added, voice tight—and Kate heard the
way he paused before her last name, as if needing a running start to form it. “You’ll excuse us, I hope.” He picked up his cell and shot a quick text.

  Leaping from his stool, Gabe grabbed his father’s arm. “Can Kate come?”

  The pause again here. “I don’t know if . . .”

  Kate was quick to shake her head. “Oh, thanks, but I couldn’t. I ought to get some research done.”

  Daniel shot a look at his son. “Just in case any ten-year-old boys present are paying attention, our friend Kate here is prioritizing her homework—even if it means leaving off fun early.”

  Gabe gazed up at Kate with a warmth that shook her. “Daddy’s using you as a did-good-in-school role model for me,” he whispered. “Hope you don’t mind the pressure.” And he slipped his hand into Kate’s. Daniel winked at her over Gabe’s head.

  Our friend Kate here.

  It was only a phrase a father had thrown out to his son to make a parenting point, and the son had only looked at her with a child’s instinctive affection and taken her hand, but a lump swelled in Kate’s throat. Little Gabe had insisted in drawing her—a near stranger, a woman who kept her walls firmly in place—into their circle of friends. She blinked hard to hold back the tears that would be too hard to explain.

  Daniel hooked a BACK SOON sign on the front door of the shop and locked it behind them.

  Gabe jumped ahead. “Come with us one more block, please?” He tugged on her hand. “Just as far as the fountain?”

  Across East Bay was a small street only a block long—VENDUE RANGE, the sign said—and beyond it the pier. At the end of Vendue and just before the start of the pier sat a fountain splashing silver streamers of water high in the air, children cavorting into and out of its spray.

  In the west, over Kate’s shoulder, the sun sprawled, sending trickles of red between buildings and across the harbor, a swath of indigo blue that was fast going black. The pier reached into the harbor as if it were trying to catch hold of the horizon.

  Kate nodded. “Just that far.”

  Near the fountain, a man stood with his back to them, hands hooked behind his head, bent arms on either side like two wings. When he raked both hands through his hair, Kate recognized him.

  She whipped the sunglasses on the top of her head down onto her face and ducked to Daniel’s far side. “That guy over there keeps popping up everywhere I go in this town. It’s getting a little creepy.”

  “Who?”

  Kate motioned with her head toward the contractor’s back just as he turned, searching the crowd, at a right angle to them.

  Daniel lowered his voice. “I know that guy. And believe me, if he’s stalking you, you got reason to be concerned.”

  “Wait. You’re serious?”

  “Got a violent past.”

  Kate swallowed. “I saw the scar on his cheek.”

  Gabe was just completing his lope around the fountain’s circumference and now broke into a dead sprint. Head down, he plowed full speed into the contractor, who braced just in time.

  And wrapped the boy in a bear hug.

  Kate covered her face with one hand. “Friend of yours, Dan?”

  “Best friend.” He chuckled. “Since first grade. Name’s Scudder Lambeth.”

  “Mm-hmm. Violent past?”

  “That part”—his voice grew serious here—“was true.”

  With Gabe on his shoulders, the man approached and wordlessly shook Daniel’s hand. One side of his mouth twitched as he turned to Kate. “If I say it’s a nice sunset, will you think I’m coming on to you now?”

  “Sorry if I was a little jumpy before. You just looked—”

  “Like I was asking you out. So you said.”

  Daniel looked from one of them to the other, apparently enjoying Kate’s discomfort. “So. You two have met.”

  “She tried to make a pass at me by dropping her scarf,” Scudder said. “But I was stupid and slow and failed to recognize a clearly flirtatious gesture for what it was.”

  “That was not . . . ,” Kate protested.

  “Sadly, I seem to have missed my chance.”

  Gabe beat his legs on Scudder’s chest. “Run through the fountain, Uncle Scuds! Run through the fountain with me!”

  Scudder Lambeth bowed then, nearly unseating his rider, and galloped away into the fountain’s spray. Water pounding the top of his head, a wig of silver fanning out from both sides, he turned and waved and, as a bare heel landed in his side, resumed his gallop.

  Laughing at her, Daniel shook his head. “That’s more words than my buddy Scuds has spoken to a woman in months—usually gets all tongue-tied and stupid.”

  “Men are always so supportive of each other. It’s touching.”

  “Smart of you to take the hard-to-get route, if you don’t mind me saying. Took him clean by surprise.”

  “Oh no.” Kate held up a hand. “You got it all wrong. I’m just here for research, and then I’m out. I’m not good with attachments—last thing I need right now.”

  Daniel lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “Good call. It’d take Scudder a month at least to ask you out—and I’m being generous. By then you’d be gone and he’d be calling a number in . . . where’d you tell Gabe—Boston? Anyway”—he nodded out toward his son, who was leaping and spinning through the spray—“you got a very first friend in town. And he’ll hold you to it.”

  Kate smiled out at the child, who spun just then and smiled back, lifting an arm to his father and her before Scudder scooped him away by the waist. “You’ve got a great kid there.”

  His eyes on his son, Daniel nodded. Then glanced her way. “Listen, Kate, this is a little awkward . . .”

  Bracing herself, she turned to him. He was going to tell her to steer clear of his son and their shop.

  “I want you to understand what I’m about to say. The thing is, I’m not interested in women.” Hearing himself, he chuckled. “That is, I was . . . or am . . . or may be again someday. What I’m trying to say is . . .”

  Kate pointed to his wedding band and said quietly, “You’re not looking.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You make that clear. In all the best ways.”

  “I just wanted to say that my son likes you. And he doesn’t have many friends. Lots of gifted students like him have trouble with kids their own age. So, listen, any time you want to hang around Cypress & Fire when we’re there, you’re more than welcome. I didn’t want it to feel weird, you know?”

  Kate examined his face, the gentleness of his eyes. “I bet you’re a really good dad.”

  He shrugged again. “Lots of us out there.”

  “No,” she said—softly, not even meaning to say it out loud. “I’m not sure there are.” She shook off Daniel’s look of concern. “Listen, thanks for the welcome—best invitation I’ve had in a long time. And now I’m just going to step over there by the bench swings and leave you guys to it.”

  “Sure you don’t want to join us?” She could see that he meant it this time. He yanked off his T-shirt, slowing as he maneuvered it past the leather cord at his neck. As he jogged into the spray with his son and their friend, Kate noted the medallion he wore—hard to see from this distance but unusual looking. This was their time together, though. So she stopped herself from running after him to inspect the medallion more closely.

  “I’m all set,” she called back, though she doubted they heard her, the three of them splashing and yelling and dodging.

  Mesmerized by the bond between them and annoyed at herself for not moving on to where she couldn’t be seen, Kate lifted her face to the mist that blew in gusts from the fountain’s spray. She wanted to turn and walk far up the pier. But she could not stop watching.

  The whole inside of her ached, and she crossed both arms tightly over her chest.

  Chapter 15

  1822

  Weaving her way through the dusk that fell over the pier like a slow rain of ash, Dinah clutched the bouquet of yellow tansies to her chest—clut
ched it hard enough she nearly stilled the shake in her hands. She’d picked more than the old lady had said she needed to make the tea. But she had to be sure it was strong enough to empty her body of horror, of fear. And if that meant she emptied it of life, her own included, then that was simply the price she was willing to pay.

  Passing the dark fingers of wharves, each pointing to the sea as if taunting her, Dinah kept her head down. Another block covered and no one had stopped her. And another. But she should not be out this close to the tolling of the bells.

  At the African Methodist Episcopal Church, its lot infested with weeds, the old lady emerged wraithlike from behind a palmetto, the gray of her skirts and the gray of her skin blending in with the mist that drifted now from the wharves as evening fell. A free black, the woman would be mostly ignored by the patrollers if she appeared to be minding her own business here just before curfew. But slipping some sort of potion to a female slave and meeting here with her at twilight . . . they could not afford to be seen.

  Gripping in her left hand a ceramic cup with a broken handle and steam rising from its center, the old lady wasted no time. Snatching the yellow heads of the flowers from Dinah, she turned her back—whatever potion she was brewing a secret.

  Then she turned but kept the cup locked in two gnarled interlaced hands. “Too much of the tansy,” the old lady whispered, “and you’ll bleed to death. Ain’t no way for me to be sure how strong a batch this come out. Too little make you and the baby both sick as hell, but don’t do nothing you say you want. Too much, the both of you poison to death. Even if the tansy just right in the tea, you bound to cramp up and vomit and bleed. Even then, no certain thing to it. You understand?”

  Dinah dropped a hand to her middle and spread her palm over the roundness there.

  The old lady leaned forward, one finger raised. “And if you too far along . . .”

  “I understand.” Dinah took the cup from her. Pressed a coin in the old woman’s palm.